Kawachi Seiko is a thrumming bundle of energy.
His work mirrors his personality: dynamic, multi-color woodblocks punctuated by scored lines through the image. The artist is full of tumultuous emotions to convey and that is evident the minute one looks at one of Kawachi’s prints.
Kawachi is a revered teacher of printmaking who spent many years teaching at Tama Art University in Japan. When he was in his 40s, although up until that time he had never considered Hokusai’s impact on woodblock printing, he had an epiphany and decided to dedicate much of his work to rendering homage to the great artist of the 19th century. Using contemporary materials, Karachi’s prints are much larger and impactful than Hokusai’s : we can almost feel the spray of the ocean wave, and the tang of sea air. The artist uses flying roosters as a metaphor for the challenge of current life. “ We know that roosters can’t really fly”, says the artist. “ My statement is to encourage people to try and do what they think is impossible to achieve. Who knows? Maybe just trying will actually get the job done”. He has often reflected on the tension and stresses of contemporary life : pulling apart steel girders is one example.( see Tokyo website for some of the prints from 1980s/1990s)
Early last year, I met with the artist at our Tokyo gallery. Due to his busy teaching schedule, we hadn’t seen each other in a while and I was eager to reconnect. I told him that I wanted to get a sense of his personality, since my clients really enjoy hearing about the artists whose work they collect. An hour and a half later, he paused to draw breath after touching on myriad subjects the (importance of Hokusai, how much he had enjoyed his time in New York at Columbia University in 1985, the stagnation of Japan, two new restaurants he had just tried..) It was a whirlwind of topics all delivered with Kawachi’s hearty manner, punctuated with lots of chuckle as he noted my (unsuccessful) attempts to get a word in edgewise..
In the past few years he has started painting in addition to releasing woodblock editions and recently, a group of his longtime supporters started planning a museum devoted to his oeuvre to open in Numazu at the end of this year. I was invited to one of the planning sessions: the discussion was lively as befits any talk involving Kawachi san who sat in the meeting happily and remarked “ I never thought I would have a museum!”
Judging from the favorable reception of museum curators and private collectors here in the United States, there is no doubt that more people should be exposed to his exciting, chaotic, joyful work.
